Will Europe be as unprepared as Ukraine was?

French Foreign Legion soldiers, part of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence battle group, take part in a military parade in the town of Tapa, Estonia, in April 2023. | REUTERS

Sep 21, 2026

KYIV/URBANA, Illinois/BERKELEY, California – Twelve years ago, Ukraine was sleepwalking toward catastrophe. Now Europe is.

Before 2014, Ukraine’s military had been hollowed out by decades of neglect and disarmament. That was a choice. Why spend scarce resources on defense when the 1994 Budapest Memorandum offered security assurances in exchange for Ukraine surrendering its nuclear arsenal? Why prepare for a conflict that the prevailing intellectual consensus said could never happen? Liberal democracy had triumphed, great-power conflict was a relic and the arc of progress bent toward peace, liberalization and economic convergence.

Worse, Ukraine allowed Russia to penetrate its information space, promote pro-Kremlin narratives, cultivate political allies and meddle in Ukraine’s elections. Under President Viktor Yanukovych, a former Russian citizen served as minister of defense. The army was sabotaged from within.

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